Trafficking of Women and Children Slavery is a form of human bondage, of forced labor in which humans are treated as the property of others. Slaves are held captive against their will and are deprived of basic human rights. This definition of slavery is aptly applied to the present day crime of human trafficking. Human trafficking is a form of modern day slavery and is one of the world’s most depraved criminal practices. It involves victims who are forced, defrauded or coerced into labor or sexual exploitation. The U.S. State Department estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 victims are trafficked annually across international boarders. (1) Approximately 80 percent of these victims worldwide are female and 50 percent are children. (2) Some 14,000 to 17,000 of these victims are believed to enter the United States each year. (3) These figures do not include the estimated 200,000 incidents of sexually exploited U.S. children within our own borders. (4) Certainly, a large number of men are coerced or forced into forms of labor exploitation such as migrant agricultural work, restaurant work, janitorial or factory work. Human traffickers, however, prey mostly on women and children, forcing them to work as prostitutes, in sweat shops , in domestic servitude and in sex entertainment. Women are trafficked into the United States from Asia, Central and South America, Russia and other Eastern European countries. Desperate women and girls are lured into this country with promises of a new life, marriage, education or gainful employment. Once in this country, their passports, visas or other identification documents are confiscated. (5) They are isolated from the public, and, should they try to make outside contact with authorities, they are threatened by their captors with imprisonment or deportation for immigration violations. Any monies earned through their forced labor are held for “safe keeping”. The majority of American victims of trafficking tend to be runaways or “throwaways,” young people who are recruited by pimps and traffickers on the streets or at bus stops for the purpose of commercial sex exploitation. Often they are abandoned or come from abusive homes. Still others are victims of forced abductions, pressure from economically deprived or drug addicted parents, or deceptive agreements between traffickers and parents. (6) Victims are moved far away from their homes and any support networks. It is estimated that one-fifth of these children are forced into nationally organized crime networks. The average age of girl victims at first involvement is 12 to 14. (7) It is extremely difficult to identify victims of trafficking because they are closely guarded by their captors. Often the child victim becomes dependent on her trafficker and views him as her protector and, therefore, no longer sees herself as a victim. Law enforcement officers and others trying to help are perceived as enemies. The federal government through the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor has made concerted efforts to combat this horrendous crime. Congress passed The Victims of Trafficking Act in 2002 to address these issues. In 2003, The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act shifted a greater amount of responsibility to law enforcement. (8) The law was redefined again in 2005 to authorize new funds and the additional tools necessary to combat this crime worldwide. Today the federal government has furthered these efforts by allocating nearly $25 million for domestic programs to promote anti-human trafficking task forces across the United States. Human trafficking is a multi-dimensional threat as it deprives victims of their basic human rights, is a global health risk and fuels the growth of organized crime. If you wish to learn more about this issue or would like to get involved in combating human trafficking, see the suggestions listed below. TAKE ACTION Read: Bales, Kevin & Soodatter, Ron, The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today, 2009 Batstone, David, Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade – And How We Can Fight It, 2007. Skinner , Benjamin, A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face with Modern day Slavery, 2008. Donate: Footnotes: |
